Happy New Year

Source.

Wishing you peace, light and serenity for the new year ahead.

2014 marks two hundred years of peace in Sweden - remarkable and thought-worthy in many respects (and with what influence one might ponder)...

God Jul, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

Source.

A corpse for Christmas [and other covers]

Source, source, source.

Stargazing at Sokcho.

Stargazing at Sokcho. By Boomoon. Nazraeli Press, 2006. 24 pp., illustrated throughout, 32,5x42,5cm. Images from here.

Book description:

"'Stargazing' is a record of hours enchanted by the night sky more than a literary approach to the starts.

Constellations are continuously moving but they are permanent indicators of time and season fort everything on earth.

Boomoon was often absorbed in gazing stars anywhere he found a clear night sky. He composed a monumental 'Stargazing' measuring 250x840cm with 60 images shot in various places in Korea, Europe and North Africa.

'Stargazing at Sokcho' published by Nazraeli Press (Tuscon, 2006) contains 19 early works of the series."

The Weather and a Place to Live.

The Weather and a Place to Live. Photographs of the Suburban West. By Steven B. Smith, essay by Maria Morris Hambourg. Duke University Press, 2005. 128 pp., illustrated throughout, 10x9". Images from here.

Book description:

"In compelling, often stunning black-and-white photographs, 'The Weather and a Place to Live' portrays the manmade landscape of the western United States.

Here we come face to face with the surreal intersection of the American appetite for suburban development and the resistant, rolling, arid country of the desert West. Steven B. Smith’s extraordinary photographs take us into the contemporary reality of sprawling suburbs reconfiguring what was once vast, unpopulated territory.

With arresting concision and an unblinking eye, Smith shows how a new frontier is being won, and suggests too how it may be lost in its very emergence."

The Question of Hope.

The Question of Hope. By Robert Adams. Nazraeli Press in association with Portland Art Museum, 2013. 56 pp., illustrated throughout, 8,5x9,5". Images from here.

Book description:

"The question of hope is especially urgent because of environmental threats.

One such peril, deforestation, is the subject of the first half of this book, where pictures of it suggest a war zone.

The subject of the second half of the book, light on the sea, might initially seem disconnected from the first, but in combination they have about them what Samuel Johnson once called "the stability of truth", in this case a recognizable balance of harsh facts and dateless, mysterious consolation.

Robert Adams has studied both elements - our failed stewardship and the promise implied by beauty - across much of the American West. He has over the years also photographed them near where he lives on the Oregon coast, and it is this local caring that gives 'The Question of Hope' much of its intensity."

Prayers in an American Church.

Prayers in an American Church. By Robert Adams. Nazraeli Press, 2012. 40 pp., illustrated throughout, 6x9". Limited edition of 1000 copies. Images from here.

Book description:

" 'Each of us welcomes quiet. As a private person, a citizen, and a photographer, these are some of the words I find myself remembering and repeating'. —— (Robert Adams)

This small volume, with just 12 quoted prayers and 17 photographs by the artist, is among the most personal of Robert Adams’s books.

'It is an old man’s book', he says, 'and reflects my conviction that art and religion come from the same sense of dependence'.

Rest in Peace Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela.

Today we mourn a great loss for humanity, an enduring peace symbol.

Down These Mean Streets.

Down These Mean Streets. By Will Steacy. b. frank books, 2012. 112 pp., illustrated throughout, 9,5x12". Edition of 400 copies. Images from here.

Book description:

"Amidst the noise and rhetoric of the 2012 US presidential campaign comes a sobering visual account of politics, capitalism, social priorities and the collapse of the American Dream.

b.frank books presents 'Down These Mean Streets', the first monograph by the Philadelphia-raised, artist and writer, Will Steacy.

In combining his own celebrated photographs of America’s inner cities with journal entries, maps, and a preponderance of text and imagery from newspapers and magazines, Steacy presents an imposing collage depicting the downward spiral of the American economy in which 30 years of misguided economic policies have transferred a nation’s wealth and power to a privileged few at the expense of the middle and working class.

Rich with iconic imagery of American culture layered with carefully edited clippings from national and regional media, he presents the portrait of a changing nation struggling to adapt to a 21st Century post-industrialist global economy."

The House That Burns Every Day.

The House That Burns Every Day. By Marina Gadonneix. Text by Christian Milovanoff. RVB Books, 2012. 32 pp., illustrated throughout, 28x35cm. Edition of 900 copies.

Book description:

"Marina Gadonneix’s work weaves a complex link between documentary and fiction through photographs of places given over to temporary neglect.

'The House That Burns Everyday' recalls a fable whose story, in ashes, would no longer reach us.

Marina Gadonneix has chosen to haunt a dummy house used by firemen to become familiar with fire and fighting it. In short, a room of fiction. Fire has raged, soon it will flare up again.

In this interstice, Gadonneix collects these artificial ruins. From a distance, the spectator can cope with the worst. The worst, in this work, is always yet to come."

Alla helgons dag

Image source.

Family is very important to me, and this is an important day.

"In Western Christian theology, the day commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven. It is a national holiday in many historically Catholic countries.

[...]

Other Christian traditions define, remember and respond to the saints in different ways."

In many European countries, including Sweden, the tradition is to light candles and visit the graves of deceased relatives.

Read more here or here for example.

Quote from here.

River Phoenix

River Phoenix reading.

I can't believe it - 20 years ago...

Winona

Winona reading.

Lou Reed reading//Rest in Peace

Lou Reed reading.

Sadden by the news that the legendary Lou Reed has passed away - the inspiration he's given me and put out into the world will forever live on - Rest in Peace.

Read more here and here for example.

The River Winter.

The River Winter. By Jem Southam. Essay by Richard Hamblyn. MACK, 2012. 96 pp., illustrated throughout, 33x27,7cm. Images from here.

Book description:

" 'Winters, like ice ages, are Janus faced, for after the freeze comes thaw and flood, as water is returned to life and movement.

Freeze, thaw, flood: the great climatic cycles that created the topography of the northern hemisphere, and which continue to shape the idea of winter that lies deep in our cultural imagination'. - Richard Hamblyn


In November 2010, after a photographic lull of half a year, Jem Southam took a photograph which became the first in this series, 'The River Winter' and which spurred him to make one of the most concentrated bodies of work in his career.

From late autumn through to the earliest signs of spring, along the banks of the river Exe in Devon, Southam chose locations and took photographs, returning at regular intervals.

This pattern continued for the next five months with Southam documenting the subtle agencies of change transforming the landscape. By the end of January 2011 he realized this had become a new work, one that caught the effects of the Earth’s turn on film, one which followed the passage of a single winter.

The shift in seasons is presented through a sequence of ten by eight colour contact prints, with which an essay by Richard Hamblyn explores how, since the last ice-age, winter has embedded itself into our cultural psyche."

Lick Creek Line.

Lick Creek Line. By Ron Jude. MACK, 2012. 112 pp., illustrated throughout, 25,7x29,2cm. Images from here.

Book description:

"Ron Jude’s new book, 'Lick Creek Line', extends and amplifies his ongoing fascination with the vagaries of photographic empiricism, and the gray area between documentation and fiction.

In a sequential narrative punctuated by contrasting moments of violence and beauty, Jude follows the rambling journey of a fur trapper, methodically checking his trap line in a remote area of Idaho in the Western United States.

Through converging pictures of landscapes, architecture, an encroaching resort community, and the solitary, secretive process of trapping pine marten for their pelts, 'Lick Creek Line' underscores the murky and culturally arbitrary nature of moral critique.

With an undercurrent of mystery and melancholy that echoes Jude’s previous two books about his childhood home of Central Idaho, 'Lick Creek Line' serves as the lynchpin in a multi-faceted, three-part look at the incomprehensibility of self and place through photographic narrative."

Suzy Cream Oil Cheese.

Suzy Cream Oil Cheese. By Osamu Kanemura. Super Labo, 2012. 16 pp., illustrated throughout, 21x29,7cm. Edition of 500. Images from here.

Book description:

" 'Susie Cream Oil Cheese' are photos mainly taken during 1998 to 2000 in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe.

The photos taken in Kobe were shot prior to the Great Awaji Earthquake and there are views that can no longer be seen after the disaster.

I borrowed part of the titlle from the late Frank Zappa's 'Suzy Cream Chease'. By adding "oil" to the "cream" and "cheese", I tried to express the dramatic clinginess or extremense of the major cities in Japan, especially that of the Kansai cities."

I have a dream

Martin Luther King Jr.

"I have a dream". Martin Luther King Jr held this speech 50 years ago today at the (1963) March for Jobs and Freedom civil rights rally.

Beautiful reading here. More info here, here, here or here for example.

Still.

Still. By Debra Bloomfield, essay by Terry Tempest Williams. Chronicle Books, 2008. 136 pp., illustrated throughout, 11,75x12". Images from here.

Book description:

"Debra Bloomfield's hypnotic photographs provide a visual map of the powerful interplay between sea and sky.

Over the years, on a single lonesome stretch of beach, Bloomfield has captured an undeniably intimate portrait of the ocean at rest.

Almost impressionistic in their tone, this collection of 60 photographs chronicling seascapes smudging into a series of hazy horizons creates a striking contrast with what we've come to expect of ocean photography.

'Still' is a captivating and entrancing vision by a unique voice in contemporary photography."

Today is ♡

Image from here.

Looking at Los Angeles.

Looking at Los Angeles. Various photographers. Edited by Marla Hamburg Kennedy, Ben Stiller, Jane Brown and Craig Krull. Essays by David L. Ulin and the Los Angeles Conservancy. Metropolis, 2005. 250 pp., illustrated thoroughout, 14x11". Images from here.

Book description:

"'Looking at Los Angeles' is at once a lesson in history, architecture, style, and culture, and a remarkable visual and written tribute to one of America’s greatest cities.

Includes photographs by:

Robert Adams, John Baldessari, William Claxton, Will Connell, Joe Deal, John Divola, William Eggleston, Sam Fentress, Anthony Friedkin, John Humble, Dennis Keeley, Florian Maier-Aichen, Grant Mudford, Karin A. Mueller, Catherine Opie, Ed Ruscha, Stephen Shore, Julius Schulman, Joel Sternfeld, Timothy Street-Porter, John Swope, Andy Warhol, Julian Wasser, Robert Weingarten, Garry Winogrand, Max Yavno and others."

Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and 1970s.

Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and 1970s. Edited by Ivan Vartanian. Text by Ivan Vartanian, Ryuichi Kaneko. Aperture, 2009. 240 pp., illustrated throughout, 9x12". Images from here.

Book description:

"During the 1960s and '70s in Japan, the photobook - through a combination of excellence in design, printing, and materials - overtook prints as a popular mode of artistic dissemination.

This process has expanded to an extent where any discussion of Japanese photography now has to include the book.

Today, the most famous works - such as Nobuyoshi Araki's 'Sentimental Journey' and Eikoh Hosoe's 'Man and Woman' - continue to inspire artists internationally.

'Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and '70s' presents forty definitive publications from the era, piecing together an otherwise invisible history. Included are some of the most influential works along with forgotten gems, placed within a larger sociological context.

Each book, beautifully reproduced through numerous spreads, is accompanied by in-depth explanatory text highlighting important editors, designers, and themes. Lavishly produced, this unique publication is an ode to the distinct character and influence of the Japanese photobook.

Among the photographers: Nobuyoshi Araki, Ken Domon, Masahisa Fukase, Hiroshi Hamaya, Eikoh Hosoe, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Miyako Ishiuchi, Kikuji Kawada, Keizo Kitajima, Kineo Kuwabara, Yoichi Midorikawa, Daido Moriyama, Takuma Nakahira, Ikko Narahara, Yasuzo Nojima, Kishin Shinoyama, Shomei Tomatsu, Hiromi Tsuchida."

Stevie 1974

Stevie Wonder performing a great half hour session on German TV show Musikladen/Beat Club in 1974.

The Artist Breakfast

Artist Breakfast - an 24-hour broadcasting event - by David Horvitz at post at MoMA, is now on-going.

[my breakfast:]

Sara Elgerot
Stockholm, Sweden
At 8.51am

First breakfast after childhood home is no longer a place to come to.

Black coffee
Spirulina, wheat grass, mint juice
Cucumber on vegan hard bread
Rosehip soup
Banana
(Two large glasses of tepid water, not pictured. Flowers from childhood garden, not eaten)

The Sun.

The Sun. By Noguchi Rika. Izu Photo Museum/Nohara, 2009. 80 pp., illustrated throughout, 19x25,5cm. Limited edition of 1000 copies.

Book description:

"Noguchi Rika’s work, 'The Sun', consists of photographic prints combined to create a one-of-a-kind artist’s book that was first shown in 2006.

It received a great deal of attention at the 55th Carnegie International in 2008 and at her exhibition at the National Art Center, Tokyo, in 2009. This work has been reproduced in a beautifully finished, limited-edition book that adheres faithfully to the original but with the addition of 18 new works.

This series was inspired a desire to "capture the colors of the sun", a subject to which everybody can relate but whose actuality cannot be easily grasped, and in this work she approaches to the sun in a direct fashion. Produced using a pinhole camera, a primitive form of lensless device, this ambitious work attempts to capture the sun’s true form.

Always on the move, she has produced work for this series in Africa, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom and at her base in Berlin.

Created during the 21st Century, when photography is undergoing a transition from film to digital, this work can be said to challenge the possibilities of medium of film."